Metro Washington Council afl-cio

Local airport workers took their battle for fair wages to the DC City Council yesterday. "We know the airport and the airlines are making record profits," Aschalew Asabie testified at the Council’s annual oversight hearing for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Asabie, a utility worker at National Airport -- and member of Unite Here Local 23 -- said that "The airport is always busy, and charges more for water and coffee than any store I can afford to go to on the street inside DC. But working at DC's airport, I make less than the DC minimum wage. None of us expect to be rich working at the airport. But working at the DC airports we deserve the same pay as workers in DC." Local 23 political director Adam Yalowitz urged the DC Council to support the workers' demand that MWAA raise wages for airport workers, "who are striving to win the same pay that the Council has already ensured all other workers in DC have." photo (bottom right): Asabie (right) and Yalowitz; photo courtesy Unite Here 23 Facebook page